Sea Witch(42)

Iker surfaced. He threw his head back, pulling in a long heave of air, and then dove, his feet splashing over the top of the churning waves.

He’d found one of them. Maybe both of them. How long had they been under? Could it be too late?

The girl looked to her toes, to the minnows swirling about her ankles like the worst thing in the world wasn’t happening right then in their slice of the sea.

Like her friends weren’t dying and it wasn’t her fault.

Though it was. She’d been the one to suggest to Anna that Nik might be impressed by her bravery. That he always seemed thrilled with hers—why wouldn’t it work for Anna? Anna, who had such a crush.

It was the girl’s own fault. She’d suggested the race. She’d planted the idea of bravery in her friend’s head. And now it was all so wrong.

Anna. Nik. Anna. Nik. Anna. Nik.

But she wasn’t powerless, was she? A memory crashed forth in her mind and suddenly the words slipped onto her tongue. Old and dark. And worth a try. She didn’t have inks or potions or crystals. But she had these words. They were a breath of life. And they were all she had.

And so, the raven-haired girl stood in the shallows, reciting the last spell her mother ever cast.

Immediately, her skin grew hot, the seawater there evaporating into dry salt streaks. Her blood sang with magic, her back to the people who would have her burned or banished. She knelt into the waves, put her hands in the water—the more of her touching, the more power there would be.

She shut her eyes.

The words continued and she began to shake. Violently. Steam rose from the waves lapping at her petticoat.

A splash. A large splash. Male voices.

Her eyes opened and looked to the faraway surface.

Nik.

Iker had Nik in his arms.

They were yelling at each other, both full of life. Nik’s voice cut through the splashes, a single clear word rising above it all, enough to be heard.

“No!”

The girl’s stomach dropped. The words stopped. She was too late. They were all too late.

“Oh, Anna. I’m so sorry.” She began to cry, the spell dead on her tongue, her skin cooling.

She blinked and saw black. Swirls of dark viscous liquid pooled in her eyes. Startled, she shot to her feet, thick black tears dripping down her cheeks and into the water.

Not again.

The girl scrubbed at her eyes, wiping her hands on her petticoat. And when she could see clearly again, she looked at her feet. Dead minnows floated on the tide’s surface, seaweed shriveling black.

She stumbled backward, onto dry land. The magic gone from her lips, one best friend swimming for land, another lying with her tears in the sea. Tears that had killed the life at her feet.

The girl turned to face the crowd, black streaks staining the heels of her hands as she rubbed her eyes again. The magic sinking into the skin.

The collective gasp was unmistakable.

“Oh, stop, it’s just sea grit. She nearly drowned!” Tante Hansa. The old woman came toward the raven-haired girl and pulled her close. Whispered in her ear: “We must leave. Hurry, your life is more important than seeing those boys to land.”





19


“ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE ALL RIGHT?” ANNEMETTE ASKS as we leave the palace, a bundle of strawberries in our hands. We went back to change so I could put on dry clothes and Annemette less muddy ones. I suggested a snack and a walk so I could clear my head. Everything was just feeling so muddled—did I actually just agree to run away with Iker? But I can’t talk to Annemette about any of that.

“I’m fine. It wasn’t a big deal. Really.”

“I just don’t understand why these people are so horrible to you,” she says. “You’re generous and smart and beautiful and best friends with their prince!”

I sigh and pull my hands away from my eyes. “That’s exactly why. You see, I’m poor, but that’s okay because nearly everyone is. But in Havnestad, and probably everywhere else, too, the poor do not befriend the royals. They serve them. Being friendly as children was fine, but it should have ended long ago.”

“So why didn’t it?”

“Tante Hansa. She saved the king when he was a boy, cured him of some terrible illness, and then again years later after a boating accident. My family was rewarded. My father was named royal fisherman, and Nik and I were allowed to remain friends. No matter how much Queen Charlotte protested, even after my mother died in the way she did.” Annemette doesn’t push further on that topic, and I go on. “The great irony is that Tante Hansa has never approved of my friendship with Nik, either, but she knows me well enough to criticize yet never to bar. But the people, they just think I’m using Nik to act better than them, to be more than them. They hate me for it. And it’ll never change.”

We walk by a row of brick cottages, each with a small garden out front.

“Anna? Anneke?” someone calls from behind.

Annemette blinks and I twist around.

Standing there in the lane, weight on her wooden cane, is Fru Liesel—Anna’s grandmother.

A crooked finger points toward Annemette, and a smile crosses the old woman’s lips. “Anneke, come, give Oma a hug. It’s been too long.”

Annemette glances at the old woman and then to me.

“Fru Liesel, this is my friend, Annemette. She is here from Odense.”